Enough snow - time for spring

It's surprising to think that just about a year ago, the interior framing was underway and maybe the wallboard was going up. So, we're about 9 months in the house now, and things are going well. The house is rock solid, but we do have a few things that Steve's still working on. The first time we used the fireplace, the house pretty much filled up with smoke. The second time, it was fine. We're thinking that the flat expanse of the roof can affect the draw, and we may need to add a section to increase the chimney height. When we get our act together with good firewood, we should be able to really offset those ghastly propane bills. Since we didn't make as much progress with the chainsaw as we hoped to, we've been buying wood that burns fast and not too as hot as I'd like. Definitely need to get ahead of this one for next year.

We're still optimizing the folding door. It's beautiful, but on the really cold nights or gloomy days it does let some air pass. After some issues keeping the door adjusted so that it could be latched, we ended up with the blunt force approach and increased the size of the holes into which the latches fit. This probably has reduced the efficiency of the doors, since there's now more "play" for latching them, which reduces the airtightness of the seal. On the upside, the passive solar attributes of the house are astounding on a sunny winter day. The sun just pours in from both levels, heating the office, living room, and bedroom. It may be the low 30's outside today, but we have the thermostats set at 66 and the upstairs rooms are registering 75F - - not bad.


Ping still likes to sit, watch from, and play on the railing - a game of catch with her is always fun, but during the sunny time, she mostly sits.


We've had some moisture issues in the overhangs on the lower deck. The overhangs were designed without soffit vents, and moisture would build up and condensate in the canister lights. Not only was it dripping out at a sometimes prodigious rate, it also wicked into and stained the wood. One person thinks we may have to replace the recessed canister lights in the kitchen with pendant/trapeze lighting (somehow, the interior lights are to blame for condensation in an exterior overhang). Let's see - that would mean stripping out what's there, bringing in Eddie to redo the wiring, replacing or patching the ceiling wallboard, and of course buying and installing halogen trapeze fixtures - priceless! Empyrean is engineering a soffit vent and insulation approach that are supposed to resolve the issue without having to change the kitchen lighting. Good plan, because I think they're all rightfully concerned about how I might react if we had to mess with the interior.

The recent lunar eclipse was well-viewed from the house. Didn't take any photos, but our private location, the clear skies, and the positioning of the house on the lot meant there were great vantage points. The moon was still quite full last night and when I woke during the night, I could watch it trace across the house, lighting up the rooms.